"It is strange. I've thought
about it a great deal."
"Alice Tarleton; that is right; Alice is a name of the family.
Lady Alice Tarleton was the mother of the first Sir Garnett
Tarleton who came over in the time of Yardley. It's a great
family. One of the oldest and best in Virginia." He looked at her
now with a gaze of concentrated interest, under which her eyes
fell. "Why, this is romantic!" he exclaimed, "absolutely romantic.
And you don't know how you came by this locket? You don't know who
was your father, your mother?"
"I do not know anything."
"And what does Monsieur Roussillon know?"
"Just as little."
"But how came he to be taking you and caring for you? He must know
how he got you, where he got you, of whom he got you? Surely he
knows--"
"Oh, I know all that. I was twelve years old when Papa Roussillon
took me, eight years ago. I had been having a hard life, and but
for him I must have died. I was a captive among the Indians. He
took me and has cared for me and taught me. He has been very, very
good to me. I love him dearly."
"And don't you remember anything at all about when, where, how the
Indians got you?"
"No." She shook her head and seemed to be trying to recollect
something. "No, I just can't remember; and yet there has always
been something like a dream in my mind, which I could not quite
get hold of.
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